About the Swf file format
- Name
- Shockwave Flash Movie
- Extension
- .swf
- Format
- Binary
- Category
- Video
- Developer
- Adobe Systems
- Description
- An SWF file is an animation created with Adobe Flash that can be played by Flash Player or with a web browser that has the Flash plugin installed. It may contain text, vector and raster graphics, and interactive content written in ActionScript.
- MIME Type
- application/x-shockwave-flash
- Sample
- sample.swf
- Wikipedia
- .swf on Wikipedia
Shockwave Flash Movie (SWF) pronounced ‘Swiff’ is a file format developed with Adobe Flash. It contains animations based on videos and vector graphics. It also goes by the name, Small Web Format. Though initially created by Macromedia, it is owned by Adobe since 2005. The main goal of creating SWF was to ensure smooth online content delivery.
The file contains interactive content that appears in Action Script opened using an SWF player. However, some SWF files contain non-interactive content like tutorials and ads that can’t be supported by all SWF players.
The compressed SWF files do not need any editing, so only the original data before compression gets to be edited.
SWF was popular between the years 2000 and 2010 to bring animated videos and sound to the web. Browser-based games were also delivered using the SWF format. It did not last too long due to its shortcomings, such as insecurity and underperformance issues. Its limitations led to Adobe announcing the end of their development and support for SWF. CSS3 animations and HTML5 video support have replaced SWF.
Video Studio pro application can open and edit the SWF files. Adobe flash player, Adobe Flash Professional CC, Adobe Dreamweaver 2020, and web browsers that have Flash plugin can open the SWF files.
